38 Responses

p.s. If Russel Norman wishes us to believe that his police complaint is about upholding the rule of law, and isn't a political stunt, he should stop publicly talking about it, and telling Police whom they should be interviewing. Given it has been admitted - and I believe accepted by Dr Norman - that the Prime Minister knew nothing about the use of GCSB resources at the time, it is difficult to see what purpose could be achieved by interviewing the Prime Minister. He doesn't know the name of the agents who intercepted Dotcom's calls, and if he does, it's only because someone more closely connected has told him.

If the Police do think something fruitful will be gained from interviewing the Prime Minister, I'm sure they'll make an appointment, but Russel (or me for that matter!) telling them how to run their investigation helps no-one.

The various Police sections and Inspector General basically investigating themselves is fraught with potential crediblity issues and confilicts of interest as far as some of us mere citizens see it. Mr Key should be first on the list for an interview, he has let the country down and more revelations may well yet come.

One can imagine Ms Kitteridge seated in a leather armchair at GCSB HQ....“do have another snifter Bec’s, now is it really necessary to go there? Good, knew you’d see it. Jolly good then, job and finish”.

I'm not sure that politicians talking about the political context this mess occurred in is necessarily a bad thing, but I do agree that they should stop trying to frame their attacks as "above politics", as if there was some pure realm above politics where "real" issues are discussed dispassionately.

As said already on one of the innumerable threads about this, Campbell Live's story from five months ago is a useful pointer about which agencies and people might need to be formally interveiwed - especially the Police. Narrowing the scope to GCSB is a political decision.

Without public pressure, the police will just sweep this under the rug. Dr Norman is totally correct to keep this in the public eye.

Based on what? This is a high profile investigation which the police have begun. If we go back a couple of months and look at their last high profile investigation in the political sphere, John Banks, there the police did a pretty good job, informed the public of the results, and released materials which further embarassed Banks. Not much left under the rug.

Even if they weren't being professional, there'd be plenty of people in the police who'd hate the fact that the GCSB can do shit and not be accountable for it, unlike the police who can be dragged over the coals when they screw up. A few cops will be loving the light being shone into GCSB processes and screw ups.

BREAKING: PM admits Kim Dotcom was mentioned briefly in a GCSB briefing in Feb; but he wasn't told about surveillance till Sept

There goes that 'fact'.

And then you read the full context, which was that a photo was shown as one of 11 in a montage as part of a bigger presentation about general GCSB operations, and the operation was mentioned as an example of cooperation with the Police. Suddenly the scandal doesn't seem like quite such a scandal after all, especially when there was no written briefing provided to accompany the presentation.

With a statutory limitation period which had expired on the easily-proved charge, and a shittily-worded law that provided a defence through which one could drive a bulldozer to the other charge. The Police do, contrary to the beliefs of people in this forum, consider whether a defence (remember, reasonable doubt) is likely to succeed before mounting a prosecution.

John Key should be first in line for a political grilling. David Shearer and Russel Norman should be jockeying for pole position in the race to drag key over the coals. Journalists should be first in line for keeping pressure on the police to investigate this thoroughly.

In three - out of 58 cases - the GCSB cannot ''assure me that the legal position is totally clear,'' Key said.

So, GCSB have provided assistance to police at least 58 times over the past 3 years. That's about 20 times a year. Which suggests either that police are routinely using GCSB to evade surveillance limits, or GCSB wiretaping is so widespread that they routinely detect evidence of serious crime in New Zealand. Either way, its something we need to be asking questions about, and scaling back.

That’s about 20 times a year....Either way, its something we need to be asking questions about, and scaling back.

I can't draw that conclusion, because their reasons for doing it are still opaque. No real point of comparison for how much spooky people do their thing, but 20 times a year sounds like an absolute pittance to me. You could easily need that many wiretaps in one operation, if there were 20 people involved.

A likely outcome of a Commission of Inquiry, depending on the terms of reference, could be that it discovers under both National and Labour Govts there has been surveillance of NZ Residents/Citizens that have been illegal.

It is not outside the realms of possibility both Labour and National there could have cause for considerable embarrassment.

Another angle to consider is the possibility of spying by the United States on persons and organisation in NZ, with the NZ Police and GCSB only becoming involved when the United States wanted an arrest and extradition.

With the turn of world events The United States and the NZ have a more co-operative (security) relationship. The United States may no longer feel the need to spy on “us” particularly after the way we behaved on the KDC Saga – the NZ govt going out of it’s way to essentially carelessly shaft itself.